“Toss these two over the side as well, Barrack Leader?”
Wynn’s hands on his shoulders tightened, but Jerek swallowed the protest that rose in his throat and tried to stand straighter. If he told them who he was, would it save them? He had to stay alive, didn’t he? He couldn’t win if he was dead. He wasn’t a coward for thinking that, was he? Wynn’s hands tightened even more.
“What?” Tel turned to face the voice from behind them. “Of course not.”
Jerek released the breath he was holding, forcing his fists to open and relax.
“We’ve no orders about them.” This was Pella, the thickset man they’d left on the floor of their room. “I mean, no orders either way. The Shekayrin just wanted the Nast girl back. We could even let them go.” He sounded remarkably reasonable, considering Wynn was still wearing his tunic.
Tel hesitated, and Jerek began to hope that he was just going to let them go—though how he and Wynn were supposed to find their way without Kerida— Jerek swallowed, blinking.
“Bring them along,” Tel finally said. “We can’t leave Wynn Martan to go back to her Wing,” he added when Pella seemed about to disagree. “And it may be they’ll draw the Miners out, and we can capture one of them.”
Pella shrugged and gestured to the other soldiers, who moved into place around them. From the way the men were looking around, it was obvious that they’d been told something about who lived in the mine. Wynn took Jerek’s hand, but Pella separated them.
“I don’t think so. You’ll be less likely to run on your own, so we’ll keep the two of you apart.”
Jerek was put between two other soldiers, men he didn’t recognize from Gaena, but not before Wynn had given him a fierce look. He nodded his understanding. Pella thought they wouldn’t try to escape alone, but he was wrong. Jerek had a reason to run these men didn’t know about. That was what Wynn’s look meant. She meant him to get away if he could, and not worry about her.
And that was what he intended to do, though the thought of running off into the dark with no idea of what might be out there twisted his guts. Ganni and Dersay and Anapola were the only Feelers he knew, or who knew him. Were they still alive? And . . .
Jerek let them take his knife and search through his belt pouch. They took Wynn’s sword and removed her pouch completely, though they let him keep his.
“I told them you’d come here,” Tel was saying now. “And I was right.” He looked toward the chasm. “I would have brought her back.”
“Tel.” Pella cleared his throat. “Tel, we’d better get moving. That they were in here at all means they got past the Shekayrin.”
“You won’t be leaving here.” Wynn sounded so calm. Jerek wished he could sound as calm as that.
Well, no. What he really wished was that the Halians had never come, and Ker was still alive and he was at home helping in the stable, and studying accounts and good stewardship of the land with Nessa. He sucked in a deep breath. Too late for that. What mattered now was doing what Ker wanted done. Escape. Get to the Wings. Be the Luqs.
“You’re lucky.” Tel glanced at Jerek and then back to Wynn. “You don’t know what’s in here. What we’re saving you from.”
Jerek took a last look at the black space that had swallowed his friend. “I know,” he said. “It’s you that’s forgotten.”
• • •
“If we tied their hands in front, it would make things easier.”
“Easier for whom?” Tel’s shoulders kept creeping up around his ears. Things certainly weren’t easy for him. What was he going to tell the Shekayrin? He’d had the witch in his hands, for the Father’s sake, and he’d lost her. Curse his luck.
“Easier for the men, is what I was thinking.” Pella looked him up and down, his frown twisted to one side. “Sir.”
Tel’s ears flushed with heat. He heard the criticism in Pella’s tone. He’d been a third officer, for the gods’ sake. He shouldn’t need Pella to tell him to consider the men. Tel nodded, his neck stiff. “You’re right, but let’s wait until we’re outside.”
The older man gave Tel a short salute and Tel’s shoulders lowered, just a tiny bit. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt this angry. And what was it his mother used to tell him? Anger makes you stupid.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Stupid officers killed themselves and their men. So he didn’t take the lead himself as he wanted to, but assigned it to two of the others. One man walked next to the girl and he himself took charge of Jerek. That left Pella behind him—just where the older man liked to be—and two more to bring up the rear. Here in the middle, where he could keep an eye on everything, was where an officer should be.
They were headed back to the main tunnel, but quickly Tel began to wonder if he shouldn’t have stayed in the lead after all. “Hold up.” He handed the boy over to Pella and made his way to the front. “You must have taken a wrong turning.”
“I couldn’t have, sir. There aren’t any.”
“Pella?”
“He’s correct, sir. The tunnel itself is turning.”
That couldn’t be right. Chasing the witch, they’d run down a straight tunnel with only one turning . . . or had it just seemed that way?
It would look bad if he went back and checked, as if he didn’t trust his own men. But his sense of direction was like an arrow in his head, and that arrow said the opening they came from should be to the right, and the tunnel was definitely leading them away from it.
“Proceed, but half speed.”
Now the tunnel was perfectly straight, though still leading them in what felt like the wrong direction. Tel started counting paces in his head. When he reached two hundred, he called another halt, strode up to where the girl was, and pushed her against the wall, his forearm across her throat.
“Who’s doing this? Is it you?” He spoke through clenched teeth, quietly enough that the men couldn’t overhear. The last thing they needed was panic.
Her dark eyes were wide, showing the whites. She blinked, looking scared, but he wouldn’t be fooled by that. She’d probably learned that trick from the witch, playing helpless and lost. Her eyes swiveled sideways.
A large, meaty hand wrapped around Tel’s upper arm, and a gruff voice murmured. “Just a second, Tel, wait now. What is it she’s doing?”
Tel turned just his head to face Pella, without letting up the pressure on the girl. “She’s done something to confuse us. We’re not heading the right way. We should have come to the entrance tunnel long ago.”
“Let her talk, man, see what she says.”
Tel released the pressure of his forearm, and Wynn took a deep, gasping breath.
“Have you lost all the sense you ever had?” she rasped out. He’d been holding her tighter than he’d realized. “How could I be doing anything?”
Tel swallowed. She was only a girl, after all. A good archer, but just an ordinary girl who couldn’t change the direction of a tunnel made of rock.
An ordinary girl.
“It’s her.” Something tight in his chest loosened, and he felt like laughing aloud. Kerida Nast was alive. The witch was behind this. And now she was— “Tricking us,” he said.
“Or maybe your sense of direction isn’t working that well anymore.” The girl was almost smiling. “Svann done any more trickery on you? Ooo, I forgot. He doesn’t have his jewel.”
Tel smiled. The girl’s jaw set, and her eyes narrowed. He hadn’t lost either the witch or the jewel. The Shekayrin would be pleased after all.
And the Shekayrin had been able to get the witch to do things she didn’t want to do.
“Kerida.” He raised his voice. He had to be right. When he had the witch, it wouldn’t matter what the men thought. “We have Wynn, and the boy. If you don’t show yourself . . .” He turned away from the girl as he spoke, grabbing the boy by the shoulder a
nd dragging him forward. The look Jerek gave him made Tel grit his teeth. What had to be done, had to be done.
“Give up—” was all he managed to say when an arrow took him in the shoulder, spinning him halfway around and numbing his whole hand. He touched the shaft, falling to his knees. It wasn’t the pain that shocked him, so much as the fact that the arrow had come out of the solid wall.
The scream forced its way out of Kerida’s throat before she could stop it. Only when she realized what the sound was, did she manage to bite down on it. She wouldn’t give Tel the satisfaction of knowing she was afraid. She fell so quickly that the light and Tel’s silhouette were gone in the blink of an eye, and she had only the soft luminescence of her wristlet to keep her from total darkness. Automatically, she spread her arms and legs to slow her fall, though she had no idea why she bothered.
Every now and then she could see a patch of the fluorescent moss on the wall of the shaft. Watching these patches, Ker thought her fall might be slowing after all, as one particularly oddly shaped bit of moss got no farther away, and in fact seemed to come a bit closer, as if she was moving toward it.
“You fall so swift and quiet as a hawk, girl.”
“Ganni?” Ker tried to roll toward his voice, but whatever power held her gave her no purchase.
“Ganni, quick, they’ve got Jerek and Wynn. We’ve got to stop them—”
“Softly, softly, my child. Give me a chance.”
Ker could see movement, mere shadows in the soft light of the mosses, and felt hands on her wrists, and then her ankles. She was careful not to grab, reminded of the swimming training her brother had given her as a child. Don’t clutch at the people saving you, or you might pull them under as well or, in this case, pull them over.
After all, there might be a limit to how many Ganni could hold. And they didn’t all have the same Gift. I can’t stop you from falling. That’s what Ennick had said. So she forced herself to relax, to let the hands haul her onto a ledge she could barely make out. Only when she felt her entire weight on the rock beneath her did she finally grab hold of the hands helping her, unable to stifle the sob that rose in her throat.
“Sorry it took so long to reach you, girl. I had to get under you, you see, I might have snapped your neck stopping you from above.”
“That doesn’t matter—or yes, of course, thank you! But Tel was waiting for us and they have Jerek and—”
“And we have you, girl, which is what’s important to me. Our people are tracking them, don’t you worry.” The old man was turning away from her. “Do we know where they are now, Ennick?”
“Tunnel seventeen, they should be.”
“Good. You go join them, quick now. We’ll follow in two shakes.”
“Don’t say anything to the soldiers about Jerek.” Ker put her hand out in the direction of Ennick’s voice. “Don’t let them know who he is.”
“Girl, we’re not mouselings. And Ennick doesn’t talk to outsiders at all.”
Ker was never sure exactly how they got back to the entry tunnels so quickly. Tunnels and shafts seemed to appear where there hadn’t been anything a moment before, and at one point Ganni “helped” them over a gap that was too wide for anyone except an athlete at the Harvest Games to leap over without help.
Not far beyond that gap they caught up with another group, this one armed with bows, spears, and swords. Ker thought she recognized some of the faces. There was Ennick, certainly, and there Norwil nodded at her, but before she could put names to any others there were shouts, and arrows flying. Ganni pushed her down as a spear came at them, and then stood, as he’d done outside, eyes closed, brow furrowed, flicking aside anything that came near them with short movements of his hands and fingers.
“Please, please, please,” Ker murmured under her breath, hardly aware which god—or all of them—she was asking to help them. Let Jerek be all right, and Wynn. And Tel. She didn’t know which one she cared most about. Her hand kept straying to the lump under her tunic, where the jewel waited.
At last the sounds of combat died away and the light of the glow stone dimmed, as though someone had thrown a cloth over it. A man she didn’t know was cutting Jerek’s bonds. As soon as he was freed, he launched himself at her, wrapping his arms around her tightly enough to cut off breath. She was pushed back against the wall, and a lucky thing, too, or they would have both gone down.
“Hey, it’s all right. These are friends. Hey, Jerek.”
“You’re alive! You’re—” The boy pulled back for just a second. “You are alive?” He gave her a bit of a shake. “I can feel you, so you can’t be a spirit.” He wrapped his arms around her again and she could feel him trembling, perhaps struggling not to cry. “I wouldn’t have told,” he said into her ear. She felt his shoulders straighten. “I wouldn’t have told them who I am, not just to save myself. I wouldn’t have.”
“Of course not. I know. No one thought you would.” Ker could see Wynn’s anxious face peering from behind Ganni’s shoulder. “Did we, Wynn?”
“Not me.” Wynn’s grin was a brave effort, but it was lucky Jerek wasn’t looking at her. “I knew my Fa—my hero would tough it out.”
“Here now, Jerek.” Ker took careful hold of his arms. “You’re stronger than you think, I can’t breathe.” Jerek loosened his hold enough for Ker to take a deep breath. He didn’t release her entirely, however, and seeing the stiffness of his face Ker slipped her own arms back around him.
“We’re safe now.” She looked over at Ganni. “The others?”
The old man turned to one side and gestured with an open hand. Now that there was no one blocking her view, Kerida saw Tel lying on his side, his cheek pressed against the dirt, his mouth fallen open. Her heart hitched, then his eyes opened, and her heart started beating again.
As if he knew what she’d thought, Ganni patted her on the shoulder. “Alive as you or me, as the fact that we’ve got him trussed should have told you. Of the rest, two’re dead, and two more bound.”
One of the other Feelers had Tel’s pouch open and was going through its contents. It was the same stiffened canvas satchel he’d had with him since they’d met in the kitchen of Questin Hall. Ker was turning away when something familiar and homely caught her eye.
A small clay jar, sealed shut by a wide wooden plug with a strip of linen to keep it tight. She blinked, knowing it immediately for the little jar of grease she’d given Tel when his harness had been new and stiff. The Feeler pried the plug loose to inspect the contents, and Ker could see the jar was empty. Tel had kept it all this time, carefully put away in his belt pouch, even though it was empty.
She glanced at him just in time to see him turn his eyes away.
She took a breath and squared her shoulders. “Jerek, this is Ennick. He’s a good friend of mine. Ennick, would you guard Jerek for me?”
Jerek peered up at Ennick. The large man grinned down at the small one and, as Ker had thought, there was something in the simplicity of Ennick’s expression that made Jerek nod, then smile and put out his hand.
“So why are we saving this man’s life?” Norwil said. “Aren’t they the enemy? Shouldn’t we be killing him?” Give him his due, Ker thought, he didn’t sound happy about it.
Ganni was shaking his head. “I’m afraid I’m on Norwil’s side on this one, Kerida Griffin Girl. You yourself said he’s been changed.”
“That’s just it.” Ker loosened the fastenings of her tunic and pulled the jewel out of its wrapping. It looked darker in the light of the dimmed glow stone, more like jet or obsidian, less like a ruby. “Here.”
A woman Ker didn’t know cleared her throat. “It looks different from the one Luca had. More”—she hesitated—“more real somehow.”
“Ask Tel Cursar how real it is.” Ker looked at Tel again. He was lying limp and still, but she’d seen his eyes open once already, and now there was a gleam of
light where his eyelashes met. “I think I can change him back.” When she turned back, Ganni was studying her closely. “At least, I’d like to try.”
“Worth a try, isn’t it?” Norwil said. “If it kills him, it’s no loss.”
“No!” Tel began to struggle. “Keep her away from me! Keep the witch away! Kill me! Kill me first!”
“LUCA Pa’narion went missing overnight, but I suppose you already knew that.”
“The watch did not report seeing him leave.” Juria Sweetwater turned her eyes away from the columns of Panthers lined up outside the main gates of Oste, to face their Faro. Tonia Nast was dressed for the cold morning and the biting wind that raked the battlements. There were fur-lined gloves on her hands, and the panther-skin cloak that marked her rank was wrapped closely around her.
Just as closely as Juria’s own bear-skin cloak was wrapped.
“Well, I don’t suppose either of us can tell a High Inquisitor of the Halls of Law where he may or may not go.” Tonia Nast dropped her voice to a murmur no one else could possibly hear. “If I had to guess, I’d say that Luca Pa’narion has gone to place himself under the orders of our prince.”
Juria smiled and shook her head.
The other woman grinned. “You’re sure you don’t want to borrow some of my Panthers?”
“I am sure. Thank you.”
The Faro of Panthers nodded, started toward the stairs, but turned back. “Juria, I have no right to ask, but—how long after I leave will there be Bears in Oste?”
Juria bared her teeth. She didn’t particularly care whether it looked much like a smile. “You may tell the Wings that I will hold the pass, Faro of Panthers, against the enemy crossing the Serpents Teeth. Those are my orders.”
The Faro of Panthers shrugged her cloak a little closer around her, her eyes narrowing. “And if they say you’re looking to set yourself up as Luqs?”
Juria blinked. Wasn’t this the very thing that she and Luca had wondered about Tonia herself? “They say, or you say?”
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